By the time the third goblin had climbed out, and a fourth was starting to climb out, I knew it was time to do something before they gathered up like the rats and swarmed me! I gave a battle cry to rattle their resolved in the face of danger – “BOOBIES!!” – and then I charged towards them, throwing my club at the nearest one and clunking it on the forehead. It toppled over and hit the ground, and I drew out my tail-spike and gripped it tightly as I barreled into the second one like a cornerback tackling a wide receiver.

I don’t think I hurt it much, but I knocked the second one off its feet as well. The third one jabbed me in the side with its dagger, but I barely even noticed. “Stats,” I yelled!

Name: Bloody HellTitles: The WitnessAge: 17Level: 8CP: 11STR: 10SYI: 8WIL: 7DEX: 10MYS: 8PRE: 7CON: 20SPR: 4LUC: 11HP: 116 (108)MP: 72SP: 36PD: 1DR: 0MR: 0SE: 8PE: 48

Looking at the damage it did, I’d suffered eight points of damage. More than what the rats did, and almost enough to make Izzy half-dead. Another hit or two like that and she’d be dead or almost dead! Just thinking about it made me angry!

“RAAHHRRRGG!” I recoiled at the thought of again slaying something so humanish, but I forced that feeling down. When the goblin pulled back his knife again, I slammed my tail-spike into the top of his skull. When I pulled it out, blood squirted from a deep hole in the top of his brainpan, and the little guy just crumpled.

At this point, the other two goblins were getting back up, and I smiled at the deep gash on the left one’s head. I might not have killed it with my club, but I knocked a nice bump on his head.

“Drake!” Isabella’s thought came rushing out to me. “Are you OK? You’re fighting! Do you need me?”

“Nah.” I tried to think of my voice as being calm, certain, and manly. I know how to yell with my voice, and how to whisper, but how the heck do you control the volume of your mind? “I’m fine for now. Just a little scuffle.”

The two goblins dashed forward at the same time and one wrapped itself around my legs and starting stabbing me in my thigh. The other one leaped up towards my chest, dagger arcing towards my upper torso, and I jabbed forward with my tail-spike to meet him. My arms and spike had a much greater reach than his little knife, and I rammed it deep into his shoulder where the little beast yelled and screamed and flailed like a living shish kabob!

I was trying to hold onto my tail-spike and not lose my grip on it, and the second little goblin was wildly jabbing away at my leg and thigh, and then another goblin jumped onto my back and was scratching at my neck and face with its short little claws. Holy shit!

Grunting with all my strength, I pushed backwards to try and slam the goblin on my back into the wall like I had that rat before, but with the one tangled around my leg I ended up just flopping backwards and crashing onto my back on the ground instead. It wasn’t quite what I’d planned, but the little bastard on my back made a satisfying crunch sound and yelped out and let go of me, while the little runt stuck on the end of my spike finally fell off and was rolling on the ground spraying blood everywhere.

The little asshole hanging onto my legs jabbed me another few times, so snarling, I turned my now free spike and started to return the favor to him. He jabbed me in the leg, thigh, and lower stomach. I jabbed him in the arm, shoulder, and face. My blood oozed out and over him, but his blood sprayed out and all over the floor and wall as he finally dropped to the ground.

Struggling up to my feet; I have to admit, that little punk had made my leg hurt quite a bit; I checked my health on the status screen once more. 78 out of 116. They would’ve killed Isabella twice over already, but even with all the poking and stabbing and clawing on me, I was still in decent enough shape. Having taken stock of my own situation, I quickly glanced around to access the situation around me.

Two goblins were dead and oozing blood from where I’d stabbed them. One was rolling and screeching as its lifeblood drained out of a hole completely through its shoulder. One was sprawled out and crumpled unconscious on the ground where he’d been on my back when I slammed onto the ground. One was almost out of the hole in the wall that they kept wiggling out of…

So I quickly dashed forward and poked, poked, poked him in the head and shoulders a few dozen times. The little dude tried to get his arms up and block my attacks, but still half-stuck in the wall he was simply prey for my anger and frustration. Once. Twice. A few more stabs. Then a few more jabs for good measure. And then finally one last poke to make certain he wasn’t faking anything.

Satisfied, I finally turned back around to check on the others. That one could just stay where the heck he was and clog up that hole forever as far as I was concerned. As I was raising my tail-spike up to go finish off the one that was knocked out, I heard Isabella yell from down the hallway, “No! Drake! Wait!”

I thought I’d told her I was fine! She had to have just been running as fast as her legs could take her to bring her out this far, this fast. Slowly I put my arm down, and waited to see what she wanted. I didn’t see any reason to spare the thing, since I couldn’t talk to it, but maybe she somehow knew its language and was going to interrogate it.

Panting and out of breath, the first thing she did on arriving was stop and then make a circuit around me. “Are you OK?” She asked while apparently inspecting my condition for herself.

“Yah,” I answered her. “Just a few little scratches and holes. I hate these bastards tried to ruin my new outfit no more than a few moments after I got it! I snorted and spit on the ground. “Patooee!” Those green bastards! Sometime in that scuffle, they must’ve tore my mask off and with all the adrenaline pumping I didn’t even notice. I assume it was the one lying there unconscious since it was the one clawing at my face, and glaring I raised my spike back up and took another step closer to it.

Only to have Isabella giggle and grab onto my arm and tell me, “Stop,” again. “I have plans for that guy, she told me.” Snorting, I just shrugged and nodded in her direction. If she had an use for him, I’d trust her. She was probably going to try and learn his language or something from it, and I had to admit, that might come in handy.

Putting that one out of my mind for the moment, I started searching and gathering what I could from the other goblins. Tattered loincloths that I wouldn’t even bother to use for cleaning rags, two knives which might be useful, and a longer knife which could almost be considered to be a crude shortsword. The first goblin that I’d thunked in the head with my club and then skewered through the shoulder had a small pouch tied to the side of his loincloth. Looking inside it was a few more of those round solid silver balls that resembled marbles, which I’d found somewhere before. What the heck did I do with those anyway? Didn’t I drop them in the tub with the large dog-rats? I wonder if they were still in there, or if they went down the drain?

Figuring that question was probably one best dug into later, I dropped the pouch of silver marbles into one of the pockets in the coveralls I was wearing, and then I went over to grab back up my club. It might not be anything special, but we’ve been through a lot of life and death together and I didn’t want to lose it.

Already I could hear a splip-splop sound coming from further down the hallway. Glancing down it, my thoughts were confirmed – it was the Jello-Muncher jiggling its way down towards us! It wasn’t exactly fast, but the beast wasn’t slow either. It definitely could travel faster than I’d imagined it could the other day. I guess you could say it sloshed itself up the hall at a reasonable trot. It wasn’t a run speed, but it was faster than a walk speed. Maybe a little slower than a good jog. Trot speed is the best I know to call it.

Isabella muttered a few words, and a ball of blue flame shot out and struck the beast. A little plop of steam flicked up, but all-in-all, her attack was completely unimpressive. Jello-Muncher simply ignored it and kept sploshing our way at a steady trot .

“Come on, Drake.” Isabella placed her hands upon my arm and tugged on the sleeves of my coveralls. “Let’s grab what we can and get out of here before it gets here. And pull that one out of the wall and lay it out here for the beast. If there aren’t any more of the little guys on the other side, simply having them all disappear might confuse the rest of the goblins. If there are more, well, at least this thing can sit here and block the tunnel for a bit while we do some preparing for them.

“Sure.” I grabbed the bloody pulp that was the last goblin and dragged it on out of the crack in the wall and dumped him onto the ground. If he had anything interesting like a knife or whatnot, he must’ve dropped it inside that jumbled mess that made up the wall, and I didn’t have time now to dig around and look for it.

Nodding as if in satisfaction to herself, Isabella pointed to the only goblin left alive and told me, “Bring that one with you, and let’s get out of here before The Guardian gets here. It’s pretty close already.”

“Jello-Muncher,” I corrected.

Isabella giggled and just nudged me to rush. Shrugging, I grabbed up the little guy’s head and then thunked it once again into the floor tiles. “Don’t want him waking half there,” I told Isabella. ‘And that’s for ruining my new mask,’ I told myself.

Quickly, I tossed the goblin over my shoulder, slid my spike and rod in between my waist and belt, and I grabbed up the little short sword in my left hand. Isabella grabbed the two knives that remained, and we darted back down the hall and away from Jello-Muncher.

I don’t know how much trouble I had just stirred up, but I had a feeling things had just gotten a bit more dangerous and unpredictable for us from now on. I hope Isabella can learn something good when she questions this little punk, because we need a win sooner than later to help us survive this mess.